Why are we supporting Medicare Advantage?

November 13, 2013

Medicare Advantage has not lived up to its promise to deliver better quality health care at a better cost. Despite having an advantage of selecting a healthy part of the Medicare population and receiving more per recipient to work with, it failed. In fact, regular Medicare participants have supported benefits to gyms, golf, and tennis for too long.

Medicare Advantage now has to take on some additional responsibilities like covering renal failure, skilled nursing, and chemotherapy costs. We'll see what changes they make to get this done.

Earlier there was a promise to get rid of this non-working system. There was a decision made to continue it with changes, possibly to allow them to come in line with a better product which gives better patient care, practice prevention, and support a practice of medicine consistent with best practice. I am not happy that a portion of my Medicare premiums is being used to support something that is not working.

The only reason I can imagine we continue this system is to see how it functions as a Managed Care model in a value based payment system.